navarro – The Past 24 Hours Or So

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Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update

The U.S. reported 53,923 new cases and 1,088 additional deaths. Twelve of the last fifteen days have seen deaths in excess of 1,000. Two of the sub-1,000 days were Sundays when states’ reporting of numbers is traditionally lower.

The United States has now recorded more than 5 million people infected.

Five hundred seventy children in America, most of them previously healthy, have experienced an inflammatory syndrome associated with Covid-19 called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C. Most became so ill that they needed intensive care, according to a new report from the CDC.

A new report by the CDC reveals that Hispanic and Black children have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic at a disproportionate rate, underscoring how minority communities across the country have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the chances of scientists creating a highly effective vaccine — one that provides 98% or more guaranteed protection — for the virus are slim.

President Trump announced he was issuing multiple executive actions designed to provide relief to millions of financially struggling Americans after talks between his aides and Democratic leaders on a new pandemic relief package broke down this week.

Speaking from his golf club in Bedminster, NJ, Trump said his orders would provide $400 per week in unemployment benefits, which is $200 less than the supplemental benefit that expired at the end of July. States will cover 25% of the costs while the federal government will cover 75%.

Trump also said he would suspend payments on some student loans through the end of the year, protect renters from being evicted from their homes, and instruct employers to defer certain payroll taxes through the end of the year for Americans who earn less than $100,000 annually.

It’s unclear where Trump will get the money to pay for the actions and whether they will face legal challenges.

Several GOP senators voiced discomfort regarding President Trump’s issuing of four executive orders meant to address the economic fall out of the coronavirus and bypassing Congress.

Some members of the president’s party took issue with the move, asserting that Congress should be legislating.

An official from a northeastern state run by a Democratic governor laughed on Saturday when asked about President Donald Trump’s executive action asking states to pay 25% of the $400 unemployment relief.

“We don’t have that money,” the official said.

The official went on to say they were not given a heads up on this executive action and that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, their funds are completely tapped.

Tens of thousands of motorcyclists swarmed the streets of Sturgis, SD on Saturday for an annual rally despite objections from residents — and with little regard for the coronavirus.

The herds of people overran every street in town, making no effort to keep six feet apart. Few masks could be seen, and free bandannas being passed out were mostly folded, or wrapped around people’s heads.

Johns Hopkins University is moving to remote learning and reducing undergraduate tuition by 10 percent for the fall term.

University of Massachusetts, Amherst backtracked on a previous plan to let students enrolled in online classes live on campus. Just weeks before the semester is scheduled to begin, the university said only a small subset of students “enrolled in essential face-to-face classes” would be allowed into dorms and dining halls.

Officials at Harvard said that they plan to allow up to 40 percent of undergraduates, including the entire freshman class, to return to campus for the fall, but that all instruction would be delivered online.

The Mid-American Conference has postponed its entire fall sports season, becoming the first FBS conference to make the drastic decision because of ongoing concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

South Carolina reported 1,178 new cases and 67 additional deaths.

In a new “Fight the Spread” campaign, South Carolina health officials are encouraging residents to fight the spread of Covid-19 as evidence increases about “high rates of infection in people who do not have symptoms and don’t know they are infectious.”

Residents are urged to wear masks, practice social distancing and get tested.

The state’s current positivity rate is 15.9%,

Illinois reported more than 2,000 new Covid-19 positive cases for the second day in a row. The 2,190 new cases are the highest daily reported number since May 24.

Wisconsin reported 1,165 new cases – its highest single-day number.

Texas reported 6,959 new cases and 247 additional deaths.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) extended his disaster declaration for all Texas counties.

Texas’ 7-day Covid-19 positivity rate has risen to 19.41% — the highest average since the pandemic began.

California reported 7,371 new cases and 178 additional deaths.

Trump Administration

TikTok has plans to sue the Trump administration over President Trump’s executive order on Thursday that targeted the Chinese-owned app, a person with direct knowledge of the pending complaint told NPR.

NPR’s source said that the wildly popular video app could file the lawsuit as early as Tuesday, adding it will be filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, where the company’s American headquarters is located.

White House Trade Advisor Peter Navarro and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin clashed in front of President Trump on Thursday before he signed an executive order requiring the Chinese parent company of TikTok, called ByteDance, to sell the app within 45 days or see it banned in the U.S.

Aides present at the meeting told the Washington Post that Mnuchin pushed for tech giant Microsoft to look into purchasing TikTok while Navarro pushed for a complete ban of the app in the U.S. and accused Mnuchin of being too soft on China, leading to their argument in front of the president.

Sources described the interaction to the Post as a “knockdown, drag-out” brawl.

Jewish and Muslim advocacy groups came out against retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, President Trump’s pick for ambassador to Germany, after a series of past controversial remarks about the Holocaust, Jews and use of force against civilians were unsurfaced this week.

Presidential Campaign

Joe Biden blasted President Trump’s executive order to cut payroll taxes as “a reckless war on Social Security.”

“He is laying out his roadmap to cutting Social Security,” Biden said. “Our seniors and millions of Americans with disabilities are under enough stress without Trump putting their hard-earned Social Security benefits in doubt.”

Sources: ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

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The United States saw a record number of new cases Tuesday with 67,417. Wednesday registered 60,971 new diagnoses and 773 U.S. deaths.

A Gallup survey found mask wearing remains a political issue, with 94 percent of Democrats stating that they “always” or “very often” wear masks when outside their homes, compared to 46 percent of Republicans who said the same.

36 percent of Republicans said they “rarely” or “never” wear a mask when going out, a position shared by only 2 percent of Democrats.

Young people throwing “Covid parties” in the United States has been making Dr. Anthony Fauci’s “head spin,” he said.

“When I hear about these Covid parties, it just makes my head spin. Because when you get infected, what you’re doing is you’re not in a vacuum. You are part of the propagation of the outbreak.”

Moderna’s chief medical officer said Wednesday that he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the biotechnology company’s Covid-19 vaccine developed in partnership with the National Institutes of Health.

President Trump said his trade adviser Peter Navarro made a misstep by publishing an op-ed critical of Dr. Anthony Fauci.

“He made a statement representing himself,” Trump said when questioned about the article while departing the White House. “He shouldn’t be doing that. I have a very good relationship with Anthony.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that President Donald Trump personally “authorized” and “encouraged” an op-ed by White House trade adviser Peter Navarro attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci said the government’s attempt to discredit him “is a bit bizarre. I don’t really fully understand it.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he has “total” confidence in Dr. Fauci.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s battle with Anthony Fauci is intensifying, putting the White House in a difficult position as it struggles to downplay evidence of a rift between President Trump and one of the nation’s most trusted health experts during the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is the sort of thing that would get you fired in any other White House,” a former official said.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Colleen Kraft said the United States doesn’t have a handle on coronavirus, largely due to people’s behavior.

“I’m not really sure at this point…what to say differently, except that we may be more at a toddler status, where we have to sort of learn ourselves by putting our hand over a fire to actually learn that there’s a problem.”

Coronavirus cases are surging in the South because states reopened too soon, not because northerners traveled to Southern destinations over Memorial Day, the Harvard Global Health Institute asserted in a statement.

“Northerners are not the cause of big outbreaks in the south,” the Institute said in a statement. “What the states that are seeing large outbreaks have in common is that they relaxed COVID-19 regulations around the same time in May.”

The reported death rates of patients being treated for coronavirus in intensive care units has improved since the beginning of the pandemic from 60% of patients dying to 42% at the end of May.

A majority of voters oppose the Trump administration’s demand that K-12 schools and day care centers be fully opened for in-person instruction during the coming academic year.

Walmart will require customers to wear face coverings at all of its namesake and Sam’s Club stores, making it the largest retailer to introduce such a policy that has otherwise proven difficult to enforce without state and federal requirements.

Kroger, the largest U.S. supermarket chain, will require customers to wear a mask or face covering to shop in their stores.

Thirty-eight states reported an increase in the number of new cases from the week before.

Twenty-seven states have paused or rolled back plans to reopen their economies.

Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) warned of “an unsettling climb” in new cases and moved to reduce seating capacity in restaurants and limit the size of gatherings.

Philadelphia plans to reopen schools in September with a hybrid of in-person and online learning, with most students physically attending school two days per week.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R) called for Ohioans to show unity and take action against the rapid spread of Covid-19 in the state.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it took Ohio 20 days to reach its first 1,500 total Covid-19 cases, DeWine said during a briefing. Last week, Ohio saw over 1,500 cases in a single day.

DeWine emphasized that the number of new cases is not just the result of increased testing.

“I know some say that our case numbers are increasing because we are simply doing more testing. Yes, our testing has gone up by 87%. But our number of positive cases has skyrocketed by almost 200%,” the governor said.

He encouraged Ohioans to wear masks.

Officials in Prince George’s County, Md., announced that students would be distance-learning through at least February.

Richmond, Virginia will make K-12 classes fully virtual in the fall due to the coronavirus pandemic. The school board cited research showing the illness is airborne and “highly contagious, especially indoors” for the decision.

Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) said the district’s state of emergency will be extended — likely through October.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster (R) is calling on all public school districts in the state to submit plans for reopening that give parents the option to either send their children back to school, or keep them home for distance learning.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) is extending the state’s emergency coronavirus restrictions, but is not requiring citizens to wear a mask.

The order also explicitly bans Georgia’s cities and counties from ordering people to wear masks in public places. He voided orders that at least 15 local governments across the state had adopted even though Kemp had earlier said cities and counties had no power to order masks.

Florida reported another 10,181 cases of coronavirus.

Florida has hit another troubling milestone in its fight against the coronavirus: a record number of daily hospitalizations related to coronavirus infections.

WFLA 8 Florida reports that the state has recorded 453 patients as new hospital admittances on July 15.

Florida’s largest public health system has seen a 226% increase in coronavirus patients since June 14.

“The biggest issue is we have a lot of aggressive noncompliant people, people that just do not believe that masking is the right thing to do,”Jackson Health System President and CEO Carlos Migoya said.

Fifty-four Florida hospital ICUs have reached capacity as Miami-Dade county reports Covid-19 ventilator use is up 92%

Florida health officials have identified a troubling trend: approximately 33 percent, or one third, of children in Florida tested for COVID-19 yield positive results.

Alabama reported a record 47 COVID deaths, more per capita than Florida.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) announced a mandatory statewide mask order, citing a 50 percent increase in new coronavirus cases over the past two weeks.

The International Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo, the oldest fishing tournament in the United States, has been canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

More than 30 students from Lake Zurich High School, Illinois have tested positive for coronavirus.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) announced that she would delay the opening of schools until after Labor Day, saying that schools needed time to get masks, thermometers, hand sanitizer and other supplies. “I can’t in good conscience open schools when Kansas has numerous hot spots where cases are at an all-time high & continuing to rapidly rise,” she wrote on Twitter.

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) has tested positive for coronavirus as cases in his state hit record levels just a month after he hosted Trump’s first campaign rally amid the pandemic.

Oklahoma has reported a record-high number of new cases. The State Department of Health said that there are at least 22,813 total cases, up at least 1,075 new cases from Tuesday.

Texas has set grim records for single-day deaths and new COVID-19 cases as the Lone Star State continues to get rocked by the pandemic.

The state reported 110 deaths and 10,791 new cases of the virus on Wednesday, bringing its total number of cases during the pandemic to 282,365. It was the second consecutive day that Texas broke its record for daily number of new cases.

TexasGov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an order mandating that most people wear face masks in public.

The Houston Independent School District, the seventh-largest in the country, said it would start the year virtually on Sept. 8. Students will have at least six weeks of online instruction, with a tentative plan to start in-person classes on Oct. 19.

Idaho experienced its deadliest day since the coronavirus pandemic began and hit a new record for cases. Eight Idohans succumbed to the disease and 550 were newly diagnosed.

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) issued a statewide order requiring the use of a face covering in many indoor and outdoor settings.

New Mexico reported its second-largest single-day Covid-19 case increase with 330 new cases.

Arizona has led the nation for over a month with the highest 7-day average of new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people.

Hospitalizations and ICU admissions for Covid-19 patients in California continue to rise in the state, setting a new record with a total of 6,745 hospitalizations and 1,886 ICU admissions.

Sacramento County students will not return to public school campuses in the fall, joining several other California counties that will start the academic year with online distance learning only.

Public school students in San Francisco will start the fall semester with classes completely online.

The iconic Tournament of Roses Parade, scheduled for New Year’s Day 2021 has been canceled.

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The Past 24 Hours or So – Coronavirus/COVID-19 Update